Corporate governance principles

Technical Seminar on Corporate Governance in Russia

30 March 2012 - Moscow, Russia

A technical seminar held in Moscow on 30 March 2012 has become a starting point of the recently re-launched OECD-Russia Corporate Governance Roundtable. The seminar was co-organized by the OECD and MICEX-RTS and addressed three topics related to corporate governance and listing requirements.

The first topic was devoted to the role of the stock exchange in setting corporate governance standards. High level foreign and Russian speakers discussed the international context and presented cases and experiences from exchanges around the world. Subsequently, several authorities and experts from the private sector, acting as commentators, discussed good practices in the area of corporate governance requirements included in listing requirements and identified gaps between international and Russian practices, focusing on foreign experiences that could be considered for future reform in Russia.

Disclosure and transparency of listed companies was the second topic of the seminar. Again, foreign and Russian speakers made interesting presentations addressing the practices in some of the leading exchanges, offered a comparison between Russia and other markets and addressing the issue of beneficial ownership. Then, authorities and experts from issuers and consultant firms addressed the Russian practices in view of the international benchmark on disclosure of corporate governance arrangements, debating the format and periodicity of disclosure, as well as ways to achieve harmonization of disclosure requirements between the Russian and international best practice, among others.

The third and final session was devoted to enforcement of insider trading and market manipulation laws. Here, foreign speakers shared the enforcement experiences of countries around the world and the particular case of the Polish securities market regulator. This was followed by a lively debate where authorities and experts shared their initial views of the functioning of the recently adopted Russian laws and regulations, as well as the challenges for compliance and enforcement so far. They also analysed possible amendments they would suggest in order to streamline the procedures and facilitate the implementation of the rules.

The meeting was attended by over 100 participants. Most of them represented issuers listed at MICEX-RTS, but also included senior officials from the Ministry of Economic Development, the Federal Financial Market Service, among others, as well as representatives from banks, investors, consultant firms and academia. Speakers included experts and practitioners from Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the United States. Roman Goryunov, First Deputy CEO of MICEX-RTS, opened the seminar and Sergey Shvetsov, Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia, closed the meeting. Overall, participants agreed that the seminar has built up a solid ground for the forthcoming key event – the 2012 Roundtable scheduled for 25-26 October.